


Brothers

by Spacenight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25831459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacenight/pseuds/Spacenight
Summary: A brief pre-series tale
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to fishdust for the editing! All remaining errors are my own.

Dean stumbled and fell. His knees hit the ground hard and he just caught himself before his face crashed into the dust. He cursed, breathing heavily, and scrambled back to his feet. The sun was beating down on him with blinding intensity from a vast blue sky. The land stretched out before him in hues of red and brown, seemingly as endless as the sky. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his torn shirt sleeve. Thirst was gnawing at him and his tongue felt huge in his dried-out mouth. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he last had some water. Time seemed to stretch and blur like the air that was rippling up from the ground in heat waves. 

He wished he could just collapse, give up this useless struggle and lie down right here in the dirt. Let the sun burn him out until he was nothing but dust. Cleanse him. For a second the vision seemed so sweet that his knees buckled, and he almost let himself sink back down. He caught a glimpse of Sam out of the corner of his eye. 

Sammy looked as bad as Dean felt. His face was reddened by the sun. His lips were chapped and dry. His shirt, drenched in sweat and dirt and blood, clung to his lithe frame. Dean cursed himself for dragging his brother into this mess. It was supposed to be an easy hunt. Go out in the desert, camp for a night, kill the Chupacabra, get back out. They had found the tracks easily enough, but they had somehow failed to notice that it was a whole pack of the beasts, instead of just one. The fight had been brutal. 

Dean couldn’t remember much of it, he only knew that they must have killed some of the beasts, because his shirt was stiff with dark blood and it wasn’t all his own. He must have hit his head. Dean recognised the signs of a concussion his dad had drilled into him. The memory loss, the disorientation. 

He wiped his hand across his face, but he had stopped sweating a while ago. In some part of his mind, his dad’s voice piped up, saying that this was a bad sign, that he needed water, fast. He felt so fucking tired, so drained of all energy, thinking that a strong gust of wind might tear at his seams and blow him apart. There was a hollow ache inside him where his heart was supposed to be. That hurt almost more than the thirst. He pressed his fist against it and looked back at Sammy. His Sammy. And the age-old mantra coursed through his muddled brain. Must protect Sammy. He burned with the thought that it might be his fault that Sam would die here. It hurt to look at his brother, to see this lost look on his face, the pain in his eyes. He really wanted to give up, lay down and let the sun dry his flesh from his bones, have them lie scattered in the desert sand, be polished with time. But he couldn’t. He had to fight. For Sammy. Had to protect Sammy. Had to be the strong one. 

“Dean… please.” Sammy’s voice drifted gently on the breeze.

“Come on, Sammy. Just a little bit further.”

Sam sighed, put one foot in front of the other, and kept walking. Dean waited till he had caught up with him and fell in step beside him. Talking hurt. His mouth was too dry and each breath spent and wasted on words seemed too much. But he had to distract his brother, keep him walking. 

“You remember that time when…”

He’d been eight and Sammy had been four. Of course, he wouldn’t remember. But for Dean the memory was suddenly clear as day. He stood on a playground, his brother on one of the swings. It was raining and the playground was empty save for them. He stood and watched as Sammy swung forward and back and forward and back, while he stood stock still, his Daddy's good soldier, keeping watch, making sure Sammy was all right. The whole world seemed to fall away before the sight of his little brother on the swing.

Rain. The memory felt so real that he could almost feel it on this face, taste it.

He stumbled and fell hard again; his teeth slammed together, biting his tongue. Blood seeped into his mouth, thick and sluggish. Dean fought the urge to spit it out and swallowed instead. The tiny trickles of moisture down his throat almost made him cough. He looked up and Sammy was there, throwing his shadow on him, blocking the sun for a blissful second. The earth under Dean's hands was burning hot. He saw Sam bend down towards him. To help him up? To sink down next to him? He didn’t know and so he scrambled up wildly, as if stung, knowing that if they both sat down here and now, they would never again get up. 

“I’m good. I’m good.”

His voice was so hoarse he could barely recognise it.

They walked on and the sun progressed across the sky until it burned straight into their faces. Dean blinked against the blinding glare. Sammy seemed to shimmer in and out of existence in the boiling air. Fear tried to pump adrenaline through his sluggish system. He knew that a tenuous grasp on reality was a sure sign of dehydration. He knew that he was approaching his limit. Had to protect Sammy. The thought burrowed deep into his mind and brought out strength that he didn’t know he had. He kept on walking, always keeping his brother in sight out of the corner of his eye. Urging them both on.

When the sun touched the western rim, they found the road. The last thing Dean saw before he passed out was Sam smiling at him beneath all the dirt and grime that covered his face. A real smile that dimpled his cheeks and made him look ten years younger. 

When Dean woke up, the first sensation that registered was movement. Then the smell of old dog and stale air. He blinked bleary eyes open to early morning sunshine. He was in an unfamiliar car, squashed into the backseat, a scratchy blanket thrown over him. A man with grey-streaked dark hair and a blond woman were sitting in the front, a dog between them. He jerked, heart jackrabbiting in his chest. Sammy! 

“Stop! You have to stop.”

He scrambled up, trying to free himself from the blanket and reach out to the man at the wheel to make him stop. The young woman turned around to him and tried to hold him down.

“Hey! Calm down. You’re ok. Everything is ok.”

“My brother, Sammy! Where is he! We have to go back!”

The man manoeuvred the car to the side of the road and stopped, engine running. He turned around; his tan face was lined, his eyes kind.

“It was only you, back where we found you.”

Dean’s heart squeezed painfully. It couldn’t be.

“No…”

“Only one set of tracks, too.”

The man looked at him, now something like cautious interest crossing over his face. 

For a horrible moment Dean couldn’t breathe. Then everything came back. How Sam had been accepted to college, how Dad had found the application letter. Their bitter fight, after which Sam had gone. Left Dad, left Dean, to go to California to live his dream. 

Relief flooded Dean’s system. He’d never thought he’d be so glad to know Sammy far, far away from him, from this life. He collapsed back onto the backseat. 

“Sorry… I … I must have dreamed…”

The man nodded. 

“You were incredibly lucky we found you. Almost ran you over. What were you doing so far out in the desert without any water, any supplies?”

Dean drew a breath and hesitated, the lies that usually came to him so easily deserted him. 

“I just got lost.” He said in the end. Then looked down at his bloody shirt. “Uh... There were some wild animals…”

The man looked at him as if he were trying to see into his soul. Dean had to work hard not to squirm under that gaze. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

“You should drink some more, there is fresh water in the footwell. We’ll be in town within the next half hour, we’ll sort you out there. 

True to his word the man, Tony, and his daughter Elsa dropped him off at a nice motel in town, even paid for one night for him and left him some cash. Tony told him he’d heard about rabid animals killing livestock in the area and although Dean got the feeling the man knew exactly what those animals were, they just left it at that. Dean was glad they let him go without involving the cops in anything despite all the gore on his shirt. He had thanked them and promised to pay them back, but Tony had only waved it off and then they were gone, back down the motorway in their rickety car with the dog. 

Dean had showered and tried to wash the worst of the dirt out of his shirt and jeans. He was going to rest up for the night and then hitch a ride back out to collect his car tomorrow.  
It was afternoon now and the sun stood golden in the west. Dean stood in front of the phone booth, clutching the quarters in his sweaty hand, staring into the sun, unblinking. Images of Sammy with him there in the desert floating through his mind. He pulled himself together and stepped into the booth. He threw in the quarters and his fingers knew the number with sure memory. The phone on the other side rang and Dean leaned against the glass. His heart jumped at the sound of the line connecting. But it was just Sammy’s recorded voice, as always, cheerfully asking him to leave a message. 

Dean hung up quickly, before it could start to record. He wiped his hand down his face and blinked back the itch in his eyes. He let out a deep breath and punched the door open. 

It would be years before he heard his brother's voice again.


End file.
